Pulau Rawa

A while ago I wrote in my Post “Nothing to see” that the weather foiled our attempt to take some photos of islands along the East coast.  On the 15th of October we made another attempt and this time we had beautiful weather and good visibility.We took off into a blue sky with puffy white clouds, a weather that is rarely seen so close to the equator.   On the way to Kota Tinggi, Nicolas noticed that the danger area is clearly marked by a difference in vegetation.  There is a sharp line between palm oil tree plantation and rain forest (or what’s left of it).  Next time I won’t have to look at the GPS to get around that airspace.

We didn’t go all the way to Mersing.  Instead we turned towards Tioman at the Mersing (WMAU) airfield.  There are a few pictures in the picture gallery and the video shows it as well.  To land on this airstrip will be one of my next flying projects.

The air above the water was smooth and the Piper basically flew itself to the beautiful islands dotted along the East coast of Malaysia.  Only a few seem to be inhabited or have any kind of accommodation for travelers.  Pulau Rawa is the exception.  There are two resorts on this island (WikiTravel: Lang’s Rawa and Rawa Safaris).  Since I have only seen the island from the air, I have no idea what is going on this island and how one would get there.  I suppose there is a ferry from Mersing.

We spent about 15 minutes flying around the islands without ATC bothering us.  Later, when I tried to call Senai tower I discovered that the radio transmission was intermittent to say the least.  It maybe that the hills (Gunung Panti) was between us and the tower station.  When you look at the track on the map, you will see on the way back we turned toward Kota Tinggi a little bit earlier than usual, which may have created the problem.

The flight back was uneventful.  The landing ok, if not a bit slow.  Nicolas (who has a French PPL) looked a bit nervous.  I agree with him that I should have been a tad faster, but I think I was safe with about 60 knots.